Don't Want to Argue, I Don't Want to Debate

There are fewer artists with better timing than "Weird Al" Yankovic. A novelty act who made funny parodies about food. His first album was quality entertainment by lampooning the likes of The Knack and even landed him a couple minor hits. But instead of becoming a musical footnote like the guys who sang My Sharona, his second album launched at a time when two cultural phenomenons collided, and he benefited from both. In 1984 MTV finally started airing music videos by black artist, most notably Michael Jackson whose video took him from being that cute kids from the Jackson 5 to the biggest act in music since The Beatles.

Enter “Weird Al” Yankovic to who took Jackson’s Beat It and, like My Sharona before it, turn it into an anthem about food. It was catchy as the original, but what made Al a household name was the accompanying music video with Al visiting the same tropes that Michael did in his video, ending up at the same West Side Story knife fight at the end, but all down with a Weird bent and rubber chickens. It became a template for Al where the video was almost important as the parody itself.

The only other music video Al made from "Weird Al" Yankovic In 3-D, this month's induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, was almost as entertaining and is now underrated compared to the others that came afterward. Based on his other love. television (the album also featured an ode to The Brady Bunch to the tune of Safety Dance), I Lost on Jeopardy is set to the Greg Kihn song about boring love and turned into a song about the worst contestant ever in the history of game show, a contestant so bad, he did not even get take the Home Game with him. For the video, Al even wrangled Art Fleming, the original host, Don Pardo and Kihn himself. I have no proof to this claim, but I would like to believe it was this song that led to the Alex Trebeck reboot of the game show.

In 3-D was also notable for being the first album that featured the now routine polka where Al broke out his accordion to sing a medley of song from the sixties and seventies classic from Devo to Iron Butterfly. Had there been another video made from the video, it most likely would had been for The Theme of Rocky XIII, naturally a parody of Eye of the Tiger (theme to the third movie), it is a shame that he did not dust the song off for his movie UHF and the song gets only more relevant as Sylvester Stallone inches closer to his thirteenth installment of his franchise. Being such a fan of The Police, King of Suede (a parody of King of Pain) and always been one of my favorite in Al’s catalogue. It is weir to thing that “Weird Al” Yankovic first released his first song thirty-five years ago next year. Hopefully we do not have to wait until then to hear what food will inspire his parody of Call Me Maybe.